At around 9 am I was alerted by the sound of water splashing, like a washing machine.  It was a shoal of small fish being attacked from above and below, directly below us.  I watched for a while, fascinated, then remembered to get my camera.  I think I must have been quite excited, because these are not as sharp as they should have been.  Here’s what I saw:

I tried a longer lens (a disappointing result, but you might be able to see some of the fish jumping out of the water).

Things would quieten down for a bit, then the water would start to boil again.  For example, over towards Haulashore Island:

Moving in a bit closer:

If you’re a sea fisherman, that sight really gets your heart thumping.  It takes some quite big fish underneath to generate that sort of action.

Right in the middle of all this excitement, along came some very different fish: slower, and not very edible.  (Swimmers, in case they’re too hard to pick out in this shot.)

Of course the local boaties were drawn in.  Some were really stupid, motoring right through the middle of the meatball, causing it to disperse.  Others knew to keep their distance and cast in, or gently troll around the perimeter.

The fishermen were having a great time, I watched some very nice kawahai around 2-3 kg being taken.

I just didn’t get any good photographic evidence.  Anyone casting off Wakefield Quay  would probably have done quite well, the fish were occasionally in quite close to the road.  Unfortunately we were expecting guests, so that wasn’t an option for me today. (Of course, all this was happening just as the tennis was being called off for the day in Auckland due to rain.)

If I had

The meeting was dominated by Dennis Charlett of Christchurch on his superfast Suzuki GSXR600.

It’s always fun to contrast the various riding styles.  Look at these two completely different ways to go round a bend.  First the Formula 1 bike:

Now the Supermoto, here ridden by local hero Josh Coppins:

Josh showed superb control, sometimes drifting in the corners as the track dried out, or pulling a wheelie down the whole length of the back straight after winning.

(Yes, I know.  That’s not the back straight.  But I missed his big one.)

Another feature is the range of bikes racing.  For example, this ancient machine was really fast, finishing well up in the Classic section.

It was a “Denelt Montlhery 500″, raced by Peter Jones of Christchurch.  I’d actually never heard 0f that brand, but ‘Sheldon’s European Motorcycle Universe’ explained that the name comes from founders Dunford and Elliot back in the 1920s.  Montlhery is a French track.  This machine seemed to rev at half the rate of the other classics, but had power to burn!  Must be interesting to ride though – note the girder forks and rigid back end.

The Manx Norton 500 of Bruce Verdon is beautiful to watch and even better to listen to.  (I had been regretting putting my hearing aids in that morning, at least until this bike went past.)

My neighbouring onlooker (whose daughter lent me her chair for a while – thank you!) got very enthusiastic about this new Norton Commando 961:

Teenager Scout Fletcher of Christchurch is one of few women racing, doing well on a Suzuki 150:

It’s fairly easy to get good, sharp shots with a long lens if a very fast shutter speed is used.  Trouble is, the bikes look as if they are standing still, not racing.  The best shots come from using a fairly slow shutter speed and panning the camera to blur the background.  I found I was rather out of practice this year, my proportion of ‘keepers’ was way down.  That’s where a programme like ‘Lightroom’ really comes into its own, speeding up the editing process no end.

I’ll try to get a representative selection covering as many of the entrants as possible up on the pBase site, www.pbase.co/kiwi_g .  It will take a few days yet though.

The planting took place at the end of last month.  I took some pictures (you can find the whole selection here).  Not just hard work but a lot of fun, especially for the kids who took part.   Our local MP Nick Smith was there, digging away:

But it was the kids that I found myself photographing:

They worked hard.  It was quite a walk to stack the empty containers:

We had an introduction from  ‘bug man’ Ruud Kleinpaste (of ‘Maggie’s Garden Show’ fame), who knows a bit about trees too.

I also learned something.  A few days earlier I had lent my camera to another photographer who snapped off a few shots and then handed it back.  I didn’t notice at the time, but the camera had been flipped to manual focus, which I seldom use outdoors.  So, even though I was using a wide angle lens with a great depth of field, half of my shots were useless.  A lesson to always check camera settings before a shoot!

You can see the remaining shots on my pBase site.  Kids, if you want any pictures just contact me and you can have them for free. (Sorry I’m late posting this.)

Views in other directions were also interesting, but I’ll leave those shots to the end of this post and get to the point.  After 45 minutes or so, I decided that I would try to get a picture of our house.  For that I would need my longest lens,  (the 300mm f4 Nikon AF-S) which I had packed into my overloaded backpack.  It wasn’t there.   I must have forgotten to put it in, I thought, and carried on photographing.  Imagine how I felt when, on arriving back home around 0930, there was no 300mm lens.  It had probably rolled out of my backpack as I was shifting locations in those first 45 mins.

I managed to get hold of the ferry owner, who arranged to meet me back at the wharf at 10 am.  To my surpise, he was accompanied by his wife and daughter.  “I thought extra eyes would help in the search” he explained.  The area to be covered was not all that large, just 100 meters or so,  but it’s not easy to spot things amongst the driftwood.  Eventually, when all we had gathered was a load of plastic rubbish to be taken back home with us, I gave up.  I resigned myself to the loss of a lens worth several thousand dollars and we made our way back to the boat.

Then I spotted it, sitting not very far from the boat, about 5 meters from the incoming tide.  Hardly a scratch on it, it must have just rolled out of my backpack as I picked it up.  Another 30 mins or so and it would have been under water.  It was a real lesson for me in the careful use of a backpack!

Afterwards I thought about the service provided by the ferry owner.  Not only did he take me back over, at very short notice, and provide extra helpers for the search, but he also refused to charge me the full minimum rate.  So the very least I can do is tell people about such truly excellent customer service.

Here are some other shots from that morning:

The knitters have been all over the central business district.  Not just inaminate objects like that bike (which the two girls really liked), but with warm sox for the smaller trees that might have been feeling the cold (we’ve recently had fresh snow on the hills).

It’s not just the trees, however.  I found these knitters working on the iron columns outside the Morrison Street Cafe:

Even larger objects have been targeted, and not just by knitters.  I think it was school children that were responsible for the change in appearance of the Collingwood Street Bridge:

Quite clever really, made from soft drink bottles

I guess that they must have used the under – 7s for painting the bridge green, they usually have a better head for heights.

Not all of the various efforts are successful and some might even be described as tacky.  But the overall effect is to lift our spirits.  It’s a really good feeling, being in Nelson right now.

We have one in front of our house and love it, even though it blocked our view and sheds lots of allergenic stuff. I think it’s about 50 years old. You can see our tree here to the left in this view from the street.

Seventeen years ago we started out upon a 30 year plan to preserve both the tree and our view.  The arborists transformed the tree from its spherical shape to a hemisphere, like a  wine glass. But they left a dozen or so small stems in the upper section. At the time it looked quite ridiculous, a strange “poodle tree”. Eventually those stems grew, as you can see in this photograph taken nine years ago.

The idea was to gradually remove limbs and foliage from the lower section, as the upper section grew. In the process we would have a small window through which to enjoy our view. Eventually we would be able to look out under the “lifted” tree.

The plan seemed to be working and the tree was thriving, providing spectacular colours from mid-December.

The flowers also attracted birds, like this silvereye (and recently a pair of tui which I have not yet managed to photograph).

Here’s a closeup of the buds:

This year however, when it was time for another trim, a new arborist poured cold water on our plan. He felt that the remaining stems were too slender and would leave the tree prone to wind damage. You do see Pohutukawa with that form, but always in a grove where they offer protection for each other. So, very reluctantly, we reversed our plan. The top would be removed, leaving the bottom half.

The tree surgeon was a very sensitive young guy from Colombia. He worked his way carefully around the tree using a hand saw for most of his work (” my chainsaw is so noisy!”).

In no time we had a new tree, this time shaped more like a parfait glass than a wine glass:

In a few months we’ll see how well the tree has coped, whether we get lots of flowers. So far it’s looking promising. In the meantime, we’ve certainly got our view back!

I was on duty early for the 0800 – 1000 shift.  My job was to advise motorists that the street would be closed from 1000.  We had plenty of volunteers, probably too many. That gave me plenty of time to have some fun, for example asking shopkeepers to rearrange their window displays so that only Italian colours were visible (by lunchtime please).  For some reason most didn’t find that particularly funny.

By lunchtime, everyone was having a great time.  Our local MP Nick Smith was there of course:

It was clear that many had the Rugby World Cup on their minds, even if they might have been sending mixed messages about who they support:

while Melissa chose to forget the rugby jersey and just look glamorous:

Friend Shaun was practising his English, Italian style (lots of gesticulations):

Stuart was obviously anticipating the arrival of the Russian team.

They play Australia here in Nelson so will have plenty of local support (NZers back anyone who plays against Australia).

This event was held once before.  A couple of years ago, part of Nelson’s successful lobby to get the Italians based here.  I was not long back from Christchurch.  After the relative anonymity of Christchurch, the sunny day, wonderful vibes and the presence of so many people that I knew, all served to remind me that I had come home.  The occasion this year felt just as good!

(That photo is from real life, not the movie.  I didn’t think it was fair to post the machines specially created for the movie.)  Anyway, the crew has been filming around Nelson during the past few weeks and on Sunday the location was Collingwood Street.

There was a real mayor, complete with mayoral chain,  ready to present the winner’s cup:

I watched a scene being shot, the finish of the final race.  Here the pilot climbs into his trolley:

and after a whole lot of rehearsals etc, (and without the trolley once moving from its spot) the jubilant winner is hoisted high:

I won’t say whether this was the local hero or the nasty Australian rich kid, you’ll have to see the movie.  People had a lot of fun, locals had the chance to see how films are made, and the extras seemed to really enjoy themselves.  Nelson’s weather turned it on too, a warm day despite the snow on the surrounding hills.

I came across two young girls amongst the onlookers, on very high stilts.  They were good, totally confident.  I think they could even have played basketball with them on.

(girls – email me if you would like some better copies)

  The unusually wet winter we’d been experiencing up to now caused some problems, even locally. One appeared a few weeks ago, when we noticed a long crack had opened up at the edge of the road in front of our house.

The bank, owned by the local City Council, had started to move downhill, pushing on the retaining wall and cottage below.  That was of real concern, especially because that cottage is important, perhaps 150 years old and one of the first three houses on our hill.  Then, yesterday, things started to happen.  The bank had slipped even further and action was urgently required. A large digger appeared (a great excuse to dodge the chores I had for that morning).

It very quickly and neatly removed the offending bank:

So the immediate danger to the cottage has passed.  Everyone, apart from the local Council, is much happier as you can see from this collection of homeowners. (Is the collective noun a “pride” of homeowners, I wonder?)

Trouble is, our car park has gone, for some time I guess while a decision is made on how the road can be stabilised.  Our usually rather narrow road is now even narrower, down to a skinny one lane.

So watch this space for the next stage, which I suspect may be very expensive and with a bit of luck might even involve huge machines for drilling into cliffs!

PS Sorry about the highly misleading title, but I couldn’t resist it!

Someone should tell this next guy  his car could do with a clean:

At least that previous driver had a windscreen.  In one of these C Class vehicles, it’s best to be the leader:

Mind you, that wasn’t easy.  The start line gave such poor traction that everything seemed to happen in slow motion.  He just sat there for a while, while spectators ducked for cover.

The corners were not much better:

I think this next shot demonstrates the term “understeer”:

Even though it’s not immediately obvious what is happening here, I did like this shot.  The menfolk are busy scraping the mud off the truck while their womenfolk look on.

There was a jump on the course but, instead of flying high (as I saw down in Christchurch), it was so slippery that the vehicles struggled to even get over it.